


He Will Provide

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Christian Bible (Old Testament), תנ"ך | Tanakh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:37:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abraham must follow the hardest commandment of his life, and bind his only son on an altar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Will Provide

**Author's Note:**

> Word Count is 1,000 without direct Bible quote.
> 
> Written for taratemima

 

 

 _Text taken from Genesis 22:1-19_  
"Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!"

"Here I am," he replied.

Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." 

Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." 

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?" 

 "Yes, my son?" Abraham replied. 

"The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" 

Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together. 

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" 

"Here I am," he replied. 

 "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." 

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided." 

The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."

HE WILL PROVIDE

Many months, possibly even stretched into years since Abraham first came to settle on the Philistine land. There had been nothing of particular interest that had occurred since God had worked out the treaty at Beersheba, allowing him to stay on these lands. It happened on one sunny evening during the season of perpetual rains, while Abraham was out in the fields tending to the cattle, Sarah was bent near the fire, preparing the evening meal with beads of slick sweat running silently from forehead to neck, and little Isaac lay quietly napping on a pile of hay that wasn't yet ready to be used. "Abraham!" 

Abraham's hand, which had been lightly drifting over the head of a cow with whom he had a very special interest a few moments before, paused before coming to rest shielding his eyes as he looked toward the hut; Sarah was still bent over the fire, and Isaac was still resting. The only possible answer for the question of who had very sternly called his name was that the Lord called him. "Here I am." 

The reply seemed a long time in coming to Abraham, who had no desire to disrupt his current lifestyle, but who would follow God's command in an instant. "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." 

Abraham's heart broke. He lay awake long after Sarah and Isaac slept, into the deep hours of the morning, the stillest hours of the black abyss which could conceivably be compared with his life at the moment. It was nearing dawn, yet the first fires of the morning sun filtering through the blackness of night did nothing to ease the blackness of his deeply wounded heart. 

When the bright morning star finally burst into the sky in all its glory, Abraham finally rose out of the bed in which he had spent a cold, unwelcoming and silent night. He gathered two of his most trusted servants from their beds and, after imparting on them the possibility that it would be a welcome idea to prepare a donkey for a journey to an undisclosed region, with an unnamable purpose, finally stopped his pointless stalling of the inevitable, and aroused his son with a gentle shake. 

Abraham, Isaac and the two faithful servants cut wood for a burnt offering, loading up the donkey with as must at the miserable beast was able to shoulder. They journeyed three days, a lengthy trek across the fields and plains of what had become their homeland. Finally, midway through the third day of their travels, Abraham pulled his bent animal to a halt and turned to face his servants. "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you."

Abraham and his travel-weary son hauled the fire and wood far away from the others, up the peak of the secluded and holy mountain which the Lord had chosen, and together built an altar for sacrifice. 

"Father?"

"Yes my son?"

"The fire and wood are here," Isaac looked perplexed as he surveyed the scene in front of him, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"

Abraham did not reply in words. Instead, he quickly tied rope around the arms and legs of his only son, who looked up at him with eyes that looked up at him with complete, absolute, unwavering trust and quiet questioning. Abraham flipped his onto his back, and so Laughter, the greatly cherished, was bound upon the altar of the Lord.

"Abraham! Abraham!" The cry of an Angel was never more welcome on this Earth, and never will be more welcomed. Abraham lowered the hand which held a sharp metal knife against the neck of his son back to his side as he replied.

"Here I am." 

"Do not lay a hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." And so The father of many Nations was allowed to remove his son from the altar, and sacrifice in his place a ram which had been caught by the horns in the thicket nearby. Abraham called out in worship as the blood of the ram spilled forth and fire eat its flesh, "On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided!"

The Angel of the Lord cried out one last time, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." 

And so, many years in the future, in the city of David, there was born to the wife of Joseph, a miracle child, descended from the child the Lord saved, who would save his people from their sin.

  
  


 


End file.
